Aspects of the present invention pertains to a substantially noiseless cooling device for cooling electronic devices such as a hard drive, an optical device, a battery, a central processing unit (CPU) or other integrated circuit device of a computer (or an enclosure skin of a system) and more particularly, of a notebook computer.
Advances continue to be made in the manufacture of solid-state electronic devices, resulting in increasing functionality, density, and performance of the integrated circuits (ICs). The amount of heat generated, and accordingly the amount of power needed to be dissipated, by modern integrated circuits generally increases with increases in the density and speed of the circuits. Removal of heat produced by the integrated circuits therefore continues to be of significant concern of modern integrated circuit package and system designers, considering the loss of performance and the degradation in reliability of integrated circuits when operated at elevated temperatures.
In addition, the trend toward more compact electronic systems is also continuing, exacerbating the thermal problem produced by the high-complexity and high-performance integrated circuits. For example, laptop or notebook sized computers have recently become quite popular, with continuing market pressure toward even smaller computer systems such as personal digital assistants (PDA). However, these small computer systems eliminate many of the traditional techniques for heat removal available for large-scale computer systems, such as the use of fans for convection cooling of the integrated circuits. As such, many modern computer systems utilize thermal conduction as the primary mode of heat removal from the integrated circuits in the computer system.
Many methods and apparatuses have been developed to remove heat from heat generating components located within the confines of a computer system enclosure. One method includes a simple attachment of a finned heat sink to the top surface of the device. Another method includes using finned heat sinks having integral fans. Another method includes the use of large, flat heat spreading plates attached directly or indirectly to the device to be cooled off. Many methods involves coupling the heat spreading plate to a heat pipe or other low resistance thermal path.
Although various methods or apparatuses have shown sufficient in the past, they do not provide the heat removal capacity and/or efficiency needed to cool current and future high-performance microprocessors or electronic devices included in computer systems, especially portable computer systems or other thin profile electronic devices. For example, because of the density of electronics inside a notebook computer, a number of strategies (e.g., heat pipes, radiator fins, and fans) have been used to provide adequate cooling to the components inside such computer. However, at least for some models of the notebook computer, the lower surface of the computer becomes quite hot during operation. If adequate ventilation to the devices are not provided, overheating of the internal components may result along with possible malfunction. Also, inadequate ventilation may cause discomfort to user using such notebook computer due to the overheating factor.
As processors and power devices get faster and hotter, and as package densities increase, the need for reliable, effective, and efficient thermal management devices become crucial. Thus, there is a need for a heat-dissipating device that can dissipate heat generated from an IC, ICs, or IC containing electronic devices.